In many instances, utility meters that measure utility service consumption are still read by hand, which can be costly, inefficient and error-prone. In some instances, utility providers desire to electronically communicate with the meters for numerous purposes including scheduling disconnection or connection of utility services to the metered loads, automatic meter reading (AMR), load shedding and load control, automatic distribution and smart-grid applications, outage reporting, providing additional services such as Internet, video, and audio, etc. In many of these instances, the meters must be configured to communicate with one or more computing devices through a communications network, which can be wired, wireless or a combination of wired and wireless, as known to one of ordinary skill in the art.
However, the use of AMR and other forms of remote metering impairs the opportunity for utility representatives to physically inspect the meter for tampering. For example, tampering with electronic power meters via magnetic field saturation has become a common method of reducing the power measurements read by the electronic power meter. By placing a magnet near the meter (approximately 600 Gauss or larger), current transformers of an electric utility meter can become saturated by the external magnetic field and the end result is a reduction in the Kilowatt/Hour (KWH) measurement. Furthermore, even low levels of magnetic field proximate to the meter can reduce KWH measurements and lead to significant reductions in revenue to the utility over time. Unfortunately, this type of tampering cannot generally be detected remotely. U.S. Pat. No. 7,218,223 describes a system that can be used to detect a strong magnet placed on or near a meter; however, this system requires multiple sensors and setting a threshold magnetic level for each sensor. Furthermore, the system described in the '223 patent records only events that exceed the threshold and may not detect low levels of magnetic field that do not exceed the threshold.
Therefore, what is desired is a meter configured to have capabilities beyond that of mere measurement of utility service consumption and that overcome challenges present in the art, some of which are described above.